Until recently, user-generated online content has consisted almost entirely of text, photographs, audio, and video. The same is true for digital marketing. But the future of user-generated content and digital marketing alike will be in three dimensions as the metaverse emerges. That’s the bet MPskin’s three co-founders made when they launched their company in Appiano, Italy, a small town in the north near the Alps in January 2021.
Two of the founders, Norbert and Thomas Gasser, had extensive experience using Matterport, Inc.™ Pro2 cameras, and Leica BLK360 cameras to capture even the most complex spaces in 3D, from multi-floor museums to sprawling
parks with all their flowers and trees, and convert them into navigable 3D digital twins in 4k resolution. Both saw the opportunity to add value to what Matterport had already built by creating a content management system for the complete customization of virtual tours.
“Our vision is to give users an easy-to-use tool that saves time in postproduction, allows them to customize their tours so they don’t look the same as everyone else’s, and enables augmented and virtual reality,” says Norbert Gasser, Cofounder, MPSkin.
Easy customization of virtual tours with the Matterport SDK
With Matterport, users can turn real spaces into 3D virtual spaces. And with MPskin, users can turn their virtual spaces into digital marketing tools. “It’s all thanks to the Matterport SDK,” Gasser says. “Making that available to everyone is one of the best things Matterport has done.”
MPskin used the Matterport SDK to create its proprietary content management system (CMS) that enables its customers to modify digital twins in as many creative ways as they can imagine. Virtual experience creators can tailor virtual experiences with a customizable menu, background music that includes a volume slider, color filters, extendable Mattertags, and more. Real estate agents can virtually stage properties with 3D furniture, museums can swap photographs and paintings from walls, and up-and-coming artists can stage virtual exhibitions.
“Best of all, the virtual spaces our users create can be easily white-labeled,” Gasser says. “They can add their own logos, their own branding, and their own style. MPskin’s fingerprints are invisible.”
Postproduction time is dramatically less than if customers had attempted to build all these features themselves, and the system is as simple and intuitive as MPskin is able to make it. “So many different people are using it,” Gasser says. “Not only those who create the content but also agencies, hotels, museum curators, and so on. We don’t want them to have to call us when they have trouble, so one of our top priorities is making MPskin as easy to use as possible.”
Transforming the culture and tourism industry
Before co-founding MPskin, Gasser spent years using Matterport cameras to capture both large and small spaces, mostly for the culture and tourism industry. And he’s convinced that this sector is poised to experience the next growth surge.
Matterport is going to be huge in the tourism sector all over Europe,” he says. “Everyone wants to know what a place looks and feels like before booking a holiday. With Matterport, they can go there virtually, take a look around, and check out the restaurants, their hotel rooms, and whatever is down the street.”
Since this industry is only just getting started, the growth curve is likely to be long, steep, or both. “There is so much tourism in our region,” Gasser says. “So there’s a lot of work to be done. We might even reach a tipping point where having a virtual tour will be as essential as having a website.”
Gearing up for the metaverse
The company celebrated when the MPskin-based tour of the museum at the medieval Brunico Castle in Italy won one of Matterport’s Digital Twin Awards in 2021. By mid-January 2022, MPskin’s customers had already customized more than 8,000 Matterport tours using the system and attracted nearly two million visitors. Approximately half of the tours leverage MPskin’s capabilities for easily creating multi-lingual experiences and some 500 include virtual staging.
Hotel clients are seeing visitors spend more time on their websites and direct bookings growth up to 20 percent. Agencies are boosting hosting revenues by selling MPskin CMS subscriptions to their end clients, which at the same time further increases margins by enabling clients to self-serve content uploads and edits.
The company hopes to grow by 200 to 300 percent over the next year, and it fully expects to. While COVID-19 may have helped inspire MPskin’s founders to use virtual tools to bring remote places to people online, now that so many have experienced the benefits, it’s clear that the possibilities that seemed far off in the future are actually available now. “Digitalization and virtual spaces have become an indispensable part of communication,” Gasser says. “Every hotel, every museum, every showroom, every real estate agency, and every school can share spaces virtually.”
They can and they will, he insists, because “the metaverse is coming, and Matterport users will play a huge role in building it. Somebody has to create the content for it, and no single person or organization will ever capture the entire planet. Matterport enables anyone to use a mobile phone to capture spaces and objects in 3D using a variety of solutions. And MPskin will give those users the freedom to customize that content in every way they can imagine.”
MPskin is a Matterport Platform Partner that leverages Matterport APIs and SDKs to build and commercialize their apps and integrations with Matterport’s market-leading spatial data platform. As a Platform Partner, the company gains access to a range of commercial benefits, such as Matterport’s distribution network and enhanced support as well as co-marketing and co-selling programs to help successfully monetize its applications. To learn more about the Platform Partner Program and apply to join, visit https://matterport.com/platform-partner-program
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ABOUT MPskin
MPskin helps turn Matterport digital twins into robust, virtual tour–based marketing tools with a content management system that gives digital marketing agencies and customers access to a wide menu of customizable features that deliver business value with a brand-aligned look and feel.
Headquarters: Appiano, South Tyrol, Italy
Products: Matterport SDK
Results
- More than 8,000 3D digital twins customized
- Attracted nearly two million visitors
- Hotel clients direct bookings increased 20 percent
- Reduction of postproduction time with easy-to-use CMS tools
https://matterport.com/industries/case-studies/mpskin-partners-matterport-help-hospitality-and-tourism-clients-customize